Talk:Mix-DJ Relationship Type

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Potential (Counter-)Examples

Trancemode Express 2.01: A Trance Tribute to Depeche Mode is a continuous mix of the tracks "Blasphemous Rumours", "The Memory Garden", "RSDR", "InnerView" and "Distant Voices". The mix was created by modifying more than just the source and end of each track. Each track was remixed somewhat to give them all a common "style". Is this a DJ-mix? (email list discussion)

A more extreme example, also from Depeche Mode, is DPM. For this album, the source tracks were completely remixed. The two tracks on the album are composed of individual elements from all the source songs, arranged in such a way as to produce what is, artistically, essentially a completely new song. In this case, it makes more sense to consider this a remix, and use the RemixerRelationshipType. (email list discussion)

Megamix (club version) by Technotronic is a remix of several songs: "Rockin' Over the Beat", "Move This", "This Beat Is Technotronic" and "Get Up (Before the Night Is Over)". Each track was substantially modified, and the songs are interleaved in a complex way, producing a substantially new song. Therefore, this track is not a DJ-mix.

I'd also say not a DJ-mix because it's a track, not an album. If it was released as an album with a single long track maybe though again, the fact that all the songs are by the same artist (and the DJ-mixing, if any, is being done either by themselves or an anonymous person) bawjaws

Discussion

Attention.png The discussion below is very messy and possibly outdated. If someone cares about points that were made in this mess, could you please make a tentative summary of these points? Then hopefully the mess can be deleted. --DonRedman


Here are my comments:

Let's say an album is a mix of 12 tracks, each of which comes from a different album. How do you relate the individual tracks to the original tracks?

What is the difference between a mash-up and a DJ mix? Many mash-ups are essentially repeated cross-fades between two different tracks. The same techniques are used for both.

Is it impossible for an individual track to be DJ mixed? Is it possible to have a compilation where each track is mixed by a different DJ?

Is it significant whether or not the DJ used the original source tracks, or the final mix of the source tracks? Is this a AdvancedRelationshipAttribute that should be added to this relationship?

Sorry I don't have an example of this right now, but: it's common among traditional bands (such as brass bands), when playing popular music, to produce "medleys". The medley consists of multiple songs, each somewhat modified at the start and end so that the band can smoothly segue from one to the other. Is this a DJ mix?

On that note: I think this relationship would be more generally useful if it was renamed to "was combined by" than "was DJ-mixed by". The way you've described it, there's no particular reason that a DJ has to be involved. The definition seems to be biased towards one particular style of music, but it's more widely applicable than that.

Many DJs produce things that I have no idea what they're called but let's call them "speed mixes". They take many songs, maybe 30 or 40, and play them each one after the other in a very abbreviated form, maybe 30 seconds or a minute each. Are these DJ mixes?

Please provide a description of the examples, not just the names of the tracks. What is it about "Perfecto Fluoro" that makes it a DJ mix and not, say, a remix? Remember that I've never heard that song, and neither will anyone else reading the documentation, so the example isn't much use without a description.

I see you've added the AdditionalRelationshipAttribute to this proposal. Why? Do you have any examples of where it should be used?

--MatthewExon

I really think it's a bad idea to try to generalize the fairly specific and understandable concept of a DJ-mix album to encompass brass band medleys and the like. Even if brass band medleys where far more common than they are, they still don't, as far as my brass band medley knowlegde goes, generally consist of an entire album long uninterrupted flow of music. And further, although the tracks may be written/composed by different people, they are all performed by the same brass band, unlike DJ-mixes which are generally performed by third parties other than the person DJ-mixing them together.

I can't figure out why the AdditionalRelationshipAttribute has been used. A leftover from a cut and past job?

  • I've removed it for now. It wasn't doing much as it was, and it's easy enough to put back later if someone can come up with a good use for it. --MatthewExon

It doesn't matter where the tracks came from or how we link them, that applies to all albums that include tracks and is far from specific to DJ-mixed albums.

  • It matters because users are going to want to know how to do that. This page should explain how. For existing various artists albums, we use the SameTrackRelationshipType. But that is inappropriate for a DJ-mix, because that page specifies that the tracks must be absolutely identical. This is precisely what I mean about making sure that the definitions are consistent. --MatthewExon

Why is DJ-mixing a subtype of remixing???? (well it's not now, cos I'm about to delete it)

  • Because DJ-mixing is a type of remixing in the broad sense, in that it uses the techniques of audio editing to produce an alternative version of a track. If you want it put in a different relationship class, please say which class that should be. This is already a pretty diverse class, including sampling as well. That's the point of the relationship classes: to be broad. --MatthewExon

This discussion is beginning to remind me of the 'what is an EP?' discussion. I seem to remember thinking we should add the advice "if you don't know what an EP is, then don't change this setting to or from EP' without consulting someone who does."

  • Which is nice, if you can tell the poor user reading this page how to do that. Unfortunately, we really don't have a good help forum for users. This wiki is it. --MatthewExon

The Discogs site isn't responding for me right now but I see from their Google cache that they list remixes, mixes and DJ mixes separately. It would be good to refer to their definitions of these terms.

  • AFAIK, "DJ Mix cd's should be listed with the main artist as Various and a credit to the DJ name with the "DJ Mix" role." is the only definition of DJ-mix at Discogs --LukasLalinsky

Attempted Definitions of a DJ-mix album:

  • DJ-mixed albums are *albums* not tracks (there are counter examples, they are not important).
  • They are important, if that's the kind of CD I'm trying to enter into the database. This page should list the hard cases, not just the easy cases. It's OK to say "MusicBrainz doesn't support this at the moment", but you should say so explicitly; otherwise the user has to spend half an hour hunting through the wiki for a relationship type that doesn't exist. --MatthewExon
  • often will claim on the album cover that it was 'mixed' by someone, generally a well known 'DJ' who will sometimes, though not always, have the letters D & J preceding their name. The term 'DJ' is used to describe many different things, the kind of DJ that we are talking about here could be called a club DJ, see this list of famous club DJ's at wikipedia.
  • the music is generally of the dance genre.
  • the individual tracks are generally recognizable but may be cut short, interleaved, faded or mixed into previous and following tracks. Note that in the extreme case, interleaved tracks might be classed as a mash-up. See MashUpRelationshipType.
  • If they can be interleaved then we're getting dangerously close to mash-ups. So I've added a note to that effect. --MatthewExon
  • a mash-up is a track, a whole album of mash-up tracks, mashed by a single artist could be considered to be DJ-mixed, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if it wasn't
  • Agreed. There's no good dividing line between these two. With the note I added above, I think we can get rid of this line of the definition. --MatthewExon
  • it really doesn't matter whether the DJ has access to components of a track or samples sections of it (I'm not sure where this concept comes from, probably from a fairly pointless attempt to define what constitutes a 'proper' remix is).
  • It's a thread I pulled out of the discussions of remixes, yes. I personally find it interesting to know whether an artist had access to the source tracks, or just used the same CD I could buy. No-one else seems to be interested, so I'm happy to drop it. --MatthewExon
  • some albums are specifically *compiled* and *mixed* by someone. It's probably not safe to assume that just because someone mixed an album, that they also chose the tracklist, particularly on the more commercial releases. Most of the time you probably don't care about the compiler of a DJ mix album, but the relationship sould be/is there if necessary.

-- bawjaws

  • Thanks very much for this summary - I think this should be included in the "Description" section above. --MatthewExon


Here is my first reply to MatthewExon - http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2005-July/000214.html

It's significant to remixes, and DJ mixes are remixes in the general sense.

  • No, DJ-mixes are compilations in general sense.

Another way is to turn down everything except the bass drum beat on the first tune, bring in the melody of the second tune, then turn down the first tune's drum beat and bring up all the other tracks of the second tune. To do that, you need access to the original source tracks.

  • No, you don't need access to the original source tracks - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_jockey#Equipment. And here is some reading about background of this all - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mix_tape
    • You don't need access to the original source tracks, but it can be done that way. Most people don't seem to want to record this information, so I'll let it go. --MatthewExon That wikipedia page was interesting, and it seems that many people might assume that this is the right way to record a common compilation album. I thought we were talking about only the case where the source tracks have been modified in some way to make them blend together. Is this right? In that case, it's an important distinction that should go in the description, pointing people to VariousArtists or something as an alternative way of entering mixtapes. --MatthewExon

So this means that the relationship should be available for tracks as well. Right?

  • No, I think this is so extreme case that we can omit it.

--LukasLalinsky

  • It's really really easy to include it you know. The question is, why should we prevent people from doing it that way? --MatthewExon What about non-album tracks such as this one? There seem to be quite a lot of them around, and there wouldn't be any way to record who mixed them unless we allow tracks in this relationship. --MatthewExon
    • Problem with this kind of mixes is not in relationships, but in ability to add multiple songs into one tracks. Some examples of other problematic albums: The Dirtchamber Sessions, Volume 1 by The Prodigy (actually mixed by Liam Howlett) or Live on Brighton Beach by Fatboy Slim
      • OK, I see what you're saying. Yes, it would be ideal if we could record each song as forming a separate part of the track. But we can't, and allowing a track to be a compilation of other tracks seems like a good hack for now. --MatthewExon


I would suggest that single-artist albums that have been DJ-mixed by the author are not necessarily candidates for this relationship. I believe a DJ-mix should be something that is applied 'post-production' and not something that was done do ensure fluidity of an album, applied before it was completed. --Gecks

  • This is often the case for 2-disc releases, where disc 1 is the full-length, unmixed tracks and the 2nd bonus disc is the tracks (and others) of the 1st disc in a continous mix. That's IMO a counter-example that this should not be prevented. --Ed Rush & Optical - Wormhole. --Keschte
    • I agree. I'll document these two 'types', pending further discussion. --Gecks
    Maybe, maybe not it would apply to this particular relationship, but I think we need the ability to record who did the mixing in both cases. Another relationship then? //bnw


Historical discussion

This is from eli on the mb-users mailing list:

But realizing this is a lot of work for small benefit (DJ sets are less than a tenth of a percent of albums I would guess). I'd like to see a new relationship type for album-artist something like "Mixed by." It could be used at least temporarily to connect items in the database that are only connected now via "Mixed by ..." in the album title. And we could automatically fill the database with mods to add these relationships for albums with "Mixed by ..."

-- RobertKaye

People are trying to use (or using) many different AdvancedRelationshipTypes (http://musicbrainz.org/showmod.html?modid=2828457 "remixed by", http://musicbrainz.org/showmod.html?modid=2723152 "mix engineered by", http://musicbrainz.org/showmod.html?modid=2917907 "performed by") for DJ-mix albums, but all of these are incorrect. IMO we urgently need "DJ-mixed by" AdvancedRelationshipType

Long discussion about remixes/DJ mixes/mash-ups/... - RemixMeansDifferentThings

Complete proposal - MixDJRelationshipType

--LukasLalinsky

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